ap english language and composition 2007 scoring guidelines · ap® english language and...

AP® ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND COMPOSITION 2007 SCORING GUIDELINES

Question 3

The score should reflect a judgment of the essay’s quality as a whole. Remember that students had only 40 minutes to read and write; therefore, the essay is not a finished product and should not be judged by standards that are appropriate for an out-of-class assignment. Evaluate the essay as a draft, making certain to reward students for what they do well. All essays, even those scored 8 or 9, may contain occasional flaws in analysis, prose style, or mechanics. Such features should enter into the holistic evaluation of an essay’s overall quality. In no case may an essay with many distracting errors in grammar and mechanics be scored higher than a 2.

9 Essays earning a score of 9 meet the criteria for 8 essays and, in addition, are especially sophisticated in their explanation and argument or demonstrate particularly impressive control of language.

8 Effective Essays earning a score of 8 effectively develop a position on the ethics of offering incentives for charitable acts. The evidence used is appropriate and convincing. The prose demonstrates an ability to control a wide range of the elements of effective writing but is not necessarily flawless.

7 Essays earning a score of 7 fit the description of 6 essays but provide a more complete argument or demonstrate a more mature prose style.

6 Adequate Essays earning a score of 6 adequately develop a position on the ethics of offering incentives for charitable acts. The evidence used is appropriate. The writing may contain lapses in diction or syntax, but generally the prose is clear.

5 Essays earning a score of 5 develop a position on the ethics of offering incentives for charitable acts. These essays may, however, provide uneven, inconsistent, or limited explanations or evidence. The writing may contain lapses in diction or syntax, but it usually conveys the student’s ideas.

4 Inadequate Essays earning a score of 4 inadequately develop a position on the ethics of offering incentives for charitable acts. The evidence used may be insufficient. The prose generally conveys the student’s ideas but may suggest immature control of writing.

3 Essays earning a score of 3 meet the criteria for a score of 4 but demonstrate less success in developing a position on the ethics of offering incentives for charitable acts or in providing evidence to support that position. The essays may show less control of writing.

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AP® ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND COMPOSITION 2007 SCORING GUIDELINES

Question 3 (continued)

2 Little Success Essays earning a score of 2 demonstrate little success in developing a position on the ethics of offering incentives for charitable acts. These essays may misunderstand the prompt or substitute a simpler task by responding to the prompt tangentially with unrelated, inaccurate, or inappropriate evidence. The prose often demonstrates consistent weaknesses in writing.

1 Essays earning a score of 1 meet the criteria for a score of 2 but are undeveloped, especially simplistic in their explanation and argument, or weak in their control of language.

0 Indicates an on-topic response that receives no credit, such as one that merely repeats the prompt.

— Indicates a blank response or one that is completely off topic.


AP® ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND COMPOSITION 2007 SCORING COMMENTARY

Question 3

Overview This question called for students to write a clear, cogent, and compelling argument. The question presented them with a prompt based on Randy Cohen’s column, “The Ethicist,” from the New York Times Magazine of April 4, 2003, and directed them to write an essay in which they “develop a position on the ethics of offering incentives for charitable acts.” Sample: 3A Score: 9 This essay begins with a very strong opening paragraph, connecting utilitarian philosophy to the “‘you scratch my back I’ll scratch yours’ nature of incetives [sic] for charities.” The second paragraph relies on an analysis of three specific different incentives-for-charities scenarios, all well developed and well presented, to support the position that there is nothing wrong in offering incentives. The student next moves to analytic reasoning to support this thesis, arguing that “[p]eople feel loath to give money away, but will happily spend $1 for a soft drink that cost ¢5 to produce” and showing that the same logic prevails in, for example, the purchase of Girl Scout cookies, itself a charitable act. The essay is particularly strong in its conclusion, where an appeal to emotions (selflessness and altruism) appears, as it does frequently in classical orations. The conclusion also skillfully anticipates and addresses a possible counterargument twice. In summary, the fullness of development, the maturity and sophistication of thought, and the control of diction raise the score of this effective essay to 9. Sample: 3B Score: 6 This essay clearly develops the position that offering incentives for charitable acts “undermines the essential idea of charity.” The second paragraph depends on extended definition to establish and support what this essential idea of charity is, and the third paragraph describes the hypothetical case of a canned food drive that earns the most generous homeroom a pizza party, claiming that “[t]hen, it is no longer about the homeless who need food, but rather the incentive of ‘WOW! I’m always wicked hungry during 2nd period and homeroom—let’s bring in a ton!’” The essay continues to develop its point, but it becomes wordy and repetitive at times. It is longer than most essays earning a 6, but it fails to offer either a fuller development or a more mature prose style that would elevate its score. It is completely adequate. Sample: 3C Score: 4 This essay is well organized and at first glance might seem better than it really is. The first paragraph does take a position that “it is O.K. to give incentives for charitable acts,” but the piece does not adequately support that position. The second and third paragraphs, for example, rely solely on opinions unsupported by examples or details. The fourth paragraph does provide an example, but not an effective or persuasive one—it is not completely clear how the narrative offered in the paragraph relates to the central claim about the acceptability of incentives for charitable acts. The brief conclusion returns to the prompt in dutiful, exam-answer fashion. This essay is inadequate to the task at hand. It generally lacks evidence for its assertions, and nothing in its prose style elevates it to the upper half of the score range.


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